The Curse of Bodie
Take anything from this ghost town in California, a nail, a bottle, a stone, and bad luck will follow you. Every year, the parcels come back.
What was reported
Bodie was a gold-mining boom town in the high desert of eastern California, with around 7,000 people at its peak in the late 1870s. It slowly emptied, and the last residents left in the 1940s. Since 1962 it has been a state park, kept in a state of 'arrested decay', its houses, church and shops left as they were.
A legend says that anyone who takes something from Bodie will be cursed with bad luck. Every year, park staff receive objects returned by post, with letters describing accidents, illnesses and misfortunes, and asking for the curse to be lifted.
Explanations offered
Many believe the curse was invented, perhaps by rangers, to stop visitors from taking souvenirs and slowly stripping the town. If so, it works. The letters show how a story can make people link ordinary bad luck to a small theft.
- When
- Abandoned in the 1940s; the curse told since the 1960s
- Where
- Bodie, California, USA
- Witnesses
- Visitors and park rangers
- Status
- Probably invented
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
More from California